An astonishing year full of gold medals and world records has left the pole vaulter believing new frontiers are still possible
e are sitting in a swish Parisian hotel, Mondo Duplantis and I, but his mind is elsewhere. It’s on the runway. Then high in the sky. Bending, arching and twisting over another impossible peak, six metres up and the rest. At the precise point where he
Anyone who has watched Duplantis vault this year has had a similarly ethereal experience. His record? Fifteen competitions, 15 wins. Gold medals in the world indoor championships, European championships, and the Olympic Games. And, incredibly, three more world records.The second world record was surely his Mona Lisa. It came on his final jump on a broiling evening at the Games in Paris. By then track was done for the night, and so it was just Duplantis, the bar at 6.
But everything is different in an Olympic year. When Michael Johnson launches his $12m Grand Slam Track league next year, for instance, it won’t include field events. “I think I can save track,” Johnson says. “I don’t think I can save track and field.” Maybe it’s time for TV directors to up their game. One idea: use drones with HD cameras to better capture the speed, the athleticism, even the trash talk. Everything that makes the sport great.Meanwhile, what Duplantis told me about his early years could also be pinned on the wall of every pushy parent. For while he broke his first world record at seven, clearing 2.33m, he was never forced to specialise early.
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